ULA officially admits first Vulcan launch is delayed to end of year
Though the announcement was not news or unexpected, ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno yesterday officially confirmed that the first Vulcan launch will not occur before the fourth quarter of this year, not this summer as hoped.
In a call with reporters July 13, Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, said the changes to the Centaur upper stage stemmed from an investigation into a test mishap in March, where hydrogen leaked from a Centaur test article and ignited, damaging both the stage and the test rig. The company announced June 24 that it would delay the launch to make “minor reinforcements” to the Centaur.
Bruno also poo-pooed the significance of a failure of a Blue Origin BE-4 engine during a static fire test in mid-June, a failure that had been kept secret until this week.
“This doesn’t indict the qualification at all,” he said, noting that BE-4 engines have more than 26,000 seconds of cumulative runtime. “We’re very confident in the design and the workmanship of the assets that have passed acceptance. This is not unexpected.”
Forgive me if I don’t take him entirely at his word. I guarantee his engineers are looking at that failure very closely to make absolutely sure it doesn’t indicate issues with the two engines on that first Vulcan rocket. It is very likely this is part of the reason that first launch is now delayed until the end of the year.
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Though the announcement was not news or unexpected, ULA’s CEO Tory Bruno yesterday officially confirmed that the first Vulcan launch will not occur before the fourth quarter of this year, not this summer as hoped.
In a call with reporters July 13, Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, said the changes to the Centaur upper stage stemmed from an investigation into a test mishap in March, where hydrogen leaked from a Centaur test article and ignited, damaging both the stage and the test rig. The company announced June 24 that it would delay the launch to make “minor reinforcements” to the Centaur.
Bruno also poo-pooed the significance of a failure of a Blue Origin BE-4 engine during a static fire test in mid-June, a failure that had been kept secret until this week.
“This doesn’t indict the qualification at all,” he said, noting that BE-4 engines have more than 26,000 seconds of cumulative runtime. “We’re very confident in the design and the workmanship of the assets that have passed acceptance. This is not unexpected.”
Forgive me if I don’t take him entirely at his word. I guarantee his engineers are looking at that failure very closely to make absolutely sure it doesn’t indicate issues with the two engines on that first Vulcan rocket. It is very likely this is part of the reason that first launch is now delayed until the end of the year.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
BE-4 engines have more than 26,000 seconds of cumulative runtime
Is that good or bad and why such an odd unit? About 7 hours, 15 minutes, but still, what does that _mean_?
One of the Falcon9s that recently landed was on its 16th flight. Each one has nine engines. Looking a launch video, MECO is around 2.5 minutes (150 seconds). 16x9x150 = 21,600. Assuming the same nine engines for all 16 flights, that one rocket almost that much engine runtime.
For a never-flown engine, I guess 26,000 seconds is rather a lot, but in comparison it seems insignificant.
Wonder how many seconds of runtime SpaceX has on Raptor. And that engine has been off the ground.
Poor Tony Bruno, even when he finally gets Vulcan successfully launched his troubles only continue. He’ll be stuck with a disposable rocket but an engine supplier that can’t produce many engines and plans to use the same engine for their own rocket.
And he’s faced with the prospect of SpaceX getting Starship to orbit before Vulcan – how can Vulcan pretend to compete once Starship/SH becomes operational?
markedup2 asked: “Is that good or bad and why such an odd unit?”
A new engine design needs a lot of ground testing before it is deemed ready to fly, so this many seconds (hours) of cumulative runtime is probably not bad. Each engine requires an amount of testing before it is deemed ready to fly. Testing for an engine is measured in seconds, because minutes do not have the precision that would adequately describe the time spent in test or operation. Do you say an engine that boosted a rocket for 136 seconds had 2 minutes of operation or 2-1/2? Or do you recreate the precision by saying 2.2667 minutes?
Historically, a booster engine would operate in flight for two to two and a half minutes and an upper stage sustainer engine would run for four to ten minutes. Then they would end up in the ocean (or somewhere on land in China). There can be a lot of test time for not much flight time.